This new option on WhatsApp means you'll never lose your contacts again, even if you change your phone

WhatsApp has just unveiled a new feature that completely changes ment the backup of your contacts.

If you use WhatsApp frequently, you may have already lost a or more of your contacts. The reasons behind this mishap can be numerous, but it is generally a change of telephone or number.

Until now, WhatsApp only allowed you to save a contact in one single way: on your device. When you add a new contact to the application, it is then stored locally on your smartphone, whether you add it manually or via its QR code. Soon, it will already be possible to add a new contact via the web application or the WhatsApp software on Windows. But this is not the best feature come!

In a blog post published at the end of October 2024, WhatsApp announced a big change for contacts. From now on, when you decide to add a contact to the application, you will first have to fill in their information (name, first name, phone number), but also choose where you want to store it! By default, WhatsApp will now save your contact within your profile on the application. By doing this, your contact will always be available on your profile even if you change devices!

Of course, this option is not mandatory. It is always possible to deactivate it if you prefer to keep your contacts warm in your smartphone and only your smartphone. To do this, you will have to check the option “sync contact on the phone” which is offered to you when adding your contact. This avoids keeping professional contacts on a personal phone for example, but you will lose these same contacts if you lose the phone where they are saved, or if the latter no longer works.

Unfortunately, this feature is not yet available at the time of writing. This option was spotted by several Internet users several months ago and the application seems to have worked on this function for a long time to perfect it. However, WhatsApp has indicated that adding contacts to your account will be available “very soon”. Let's bet that this is an update coming before the end of 2024.

WhatsApp is chaining updates with new features. The company behind the application has notably started adding music to statuses and also seems to leave clues as to the addition of pseudonyms instead of the first and last names of each contact. This should provide more privacy, but you'll have to wait to get this option.